Semipro Team Counting Its Lucky Stars : Baseball: San Diego-based team charms world but not its hometown.

Perhaps the wooden bats they swing don’t make enough noise, or the 27-foot motor home they take on trips doesn’t devour enough of the road.

Or maybe the initials of the organization in which they play are too easily confused with a television network.

The San Diego Stars--members of the National Baseball Congress (NBC) and one of the best semiprofessional teams in the country--can’t get any attention.

Not in San Diego, anyway.

Mickey Deutschman, owner and field manager, claims the team he began sponsoring nine years ago has captivated Cuba and Canada, charmed South Korea, enlightened Australia, tamed Taiwan and soon will take a jab at Japan.

“People all over the world know us as a class act and a power,” said Deutschman, his voice dancing like a knuckle ball. “We’ve sent a lotta guys to the bigs. I’ve had guys get scholarships.”

But when the subject turns to San Diego, Deutschman steadied himself and suddenly sounded like a manager whose team just lost both ends of a doubleheader.

“San Diego . . . we don’t get recognition in San Diego at all,” he said. “Too much to do . . . Chargers, Padres, Sockers, Mission Bay, over-the-line, Del Mar. I’ve thought of relocating to Victorville.”

The Stars are a talent-rich collection of college-aged players, most of whom are either hoping to get signed to play pro ball or have already been in the pro ranks and are hoping to get back. They are coming off their best season, a fourth-place finish at the NBC World Series in Wichita, Kan.

They now are 10-4 (19-10 overall) and tied for first place in the Golden State League with the Woodland Hills Astros, whom they beat 6-0 Sunday.

Deutschman will never forget the first trip he made with the Stars to the NBC World Series in 1984. Manager Pete Jurnigan couldn’t make the trip. Deutschman went as acting manager. The Stars finished a surprising fifth and sparked Deutschman’s desire to someday bring a national championship back to San Diego.

“I saw the level of ball that was being played from Alaska to Cape Cod,” he said. “When I saw Pete Incaviglia, Barry Bonds, Greg Swindell, Rafael Palmeiro, I said, ‘Holy Cow. This is unbelievable. This is what the Stars should be.’ ”

Since then, more than 25 of his players have signed pro contracts and his teams have qualified for the series in all but two seasons. Yet all of this seems to go unnoticed at home.

It is safe to say that most tee-ball teams in the East County draw bigger crowds. Average attendance at Stars games is 20.

Deutschman is hoping that will change this week when San Diego hosts the West Coast Qualifying Tournament for the NBC World Series. The Stars have an automatic berth in the series because of their fourth-place finish last year and are one of the favorites among the 16 teams playing at four different sites the first two days.

The Stars’ first game is 10 a.m. today at El Capitan High. Games are scheduled for 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. at El Capitan and Grossmont College. Games also will be played at UC Irvine and a park in Tustin. Winners’ bracket games will be played at Grossmont and losers’ bracket games at El Capitan on Saturday. The final is 1 p.m. Sunday at Grossmont. A second game, if necessary, will start at 4 p.m.

Deutschman will be happy if he can capture a sliver of the atmosphere to be found at the Aug. 8-21 World Series.

“In Wichita, it’s 7,000-8,000 people,” he said. “Stands are packed. Kids can’t wait to get the players’ autographs. Live TV. Radio broadcasts back home to all stations. Full-page news coverage. Major league.”

The Stars’ record should be enough to arouse an average baseball fan’s interest.

The present lineup includes center fielder Art Calvert, who played at triple-A Columbus for the New York Yankees three years ago, and left-handed pitcher Bobby Gunnerson, who was in the Padre organization last year. It also features ex-San Diego State players Greg Page, Dave Campagna, Rusty Filter and Billy Miller.

Page, who played in the Giants system, was 2-0 with a 1.60 ERA through last week. Filter, who had a brief stint as a pitcher in single-A, was hitting around .300 with 12 RBIs in his first 15 games. Two other San Diego products, Al Barsoon (.571 batting average to lead the GSL) and Ryan Love (.430), are tearing up the league.

Five ex-Stars now are playing in the minors and one, pitcher Gino Minutelli, was called up by the Cincinnati Reds last week.

Two ex-Stars, Tommy Mitchell and Jim Tatum, are getting second chances at a pro career.

Tatum, a shortstop from Santana High, is among the leaders in the Texas League with a .330 average. He entered the week with 75 RBIs, 11 home runs, 15 doubles and seven triples for double-A El Paso in the Milwaukee Brewer system. He had previously been in the Padre and Cleveland Indian organizations.

“If it hadn’t have been for the Stars and him going to Wichita, he would have been out of ball,” Deutschman said. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

Mitchell, the younger brother of San Francisco Giant slugger Kevin Mitchell, was released by Detroit after an altercation with a coach. With nowhere else to go, Mitchell came to the Stars. It took three seasons before anyone else was willing to take a chance on him, but now he is making a comeback with Reno, an independent team in the California League. In 65 games, he has driven in 30 runs and carries a .251 average.

“That’s a success story all in its own, because he was getting pushed right out of ball,” Deutschman said. “It took three years of people saying, ‘This guy wants to play.’ ”

Scott Middaugh, who resurrected his career with the Stars after quitting at SDSU, is 2-2 with a 3.41 ERA at double-A Birmingham for the Chicago White Sox.

The biggest success story to date is Minutelli, who decided to take up pitching three years after he graduated from Sweetwater High. Before he was recalled by the Reds, Minutelli was 4-4 in 10 starts with a 1.44 ERA at Nashville.

When he first took the mound in a workout with the Stars, he was wearing sneakers.

Minutelli was a late arrival to the original Stars on a three-year barnstorming baseball tour. The roster included former minor leaguers Rich Aspenliter, Dave DaCosta and Dan Dixon. Rex Jenner, who had a stint in Mexico, and Bill Cherico, who enjoyed success in Italy, also played on that team.

Deutschman became a one-man organization as owner, sponsor, general manager, field manager and equipment manager. Even today, he drags the infield, chalks the batter’s box, fills out the lineup card and pays the umpires. It costs him approximately $300 to play a game.

On the road, he makes the itinerary, drives the motor home, which he bought for $42,000, and buys the coffee.

Deutschman also works as an assistant coach at Grossmont College, but his only experience was in Little League before he grabbed the reins of the Stars.

“I truly love baseball,” he said. “I wish I could have played.”

He came from a broken home, raised in an alcoholic environment. At 17, he enlisted in the Navy.

“The only way that I could see that I could make anything out of my life was to join the service.’

He’s 49, divorced and the father of five boys and a girl. He started his own business--Temperature Control Air Conditioning--in 1975 and now uses it as the lifeblood of the Stars. He employs his players and he plans separate 40-hour work weeks for his job and his baseball management. He takes no time off in the winter.

Many of the teams the Stars face are sponsored for nearly $150,000 a year, Deutschman said. That is approximately what Deutschman has spent to bankroll the Stars for nearly a decade, excluding the RV.

Gradually, Deutschman has changed the character of the team and dropped the average age per player from 26 to 23. And, despite the fact that the Stars are nearly anonymous in San Diego, 90 players flocked to the first practice this year.

Deutschman was shocked.

He no longer holds tryouts and tries to keep early practice dates a secret.

“I bet if you ask any baseball player in San Diego, he’ll know who the Stars are,” said Filter. “He runs the team right. He’s a good guy.”

“You take a young man who gets drafted out of high school,” Deutschman said. “He goes and plays some pro ball and 2 1/2 years later he gets cut. He comes back home. He can’t play in college. He has no place to play. He might only be 19. He can play with the Stars. And he can go back and get re-signed.

“Jimmy Tatum did that . . . “

Filter, 22, would like a second chance in the minors, although he questions whether he actually got a first chance in his three-month stint as a pitcher in the Toronto Blue Jay organization last summer. He had five saves and 21 appearances in single A, but he was considered expendable.

Filter had been drafted in the 30th round out of SDSU, where he was converted from catcher to pitcher.

During the holidays last winter, the Blue Jays sent Filter a carbon-copy yellow slip that contained a check mark in a box labeled “outright release.” There were no other words, no explanation.

“If the opportunity came, I’d go back (to pro ball) in a heartbeat,” he said. “I’d go as a catcher, a pitcher . . . whatever they’d want me for.’

Not so for Miller, Filter’s former SDSU teammate.

“If anybody tried to sign me, there’s no way I’d go back,” said the former SDSU outfielder who was asked to become a professional pitcher. “I’ve made that clear. Baseball is not a sport no more. It’s a money-making business.”

Miller, 23, grew up tagging along with his father, Bill, a major league scout, and dreaming of being a professional ball player. The former Bonita Vista High standout was taken in the 22nd round by the Dodgers in 1989.

Although Miller said the Dodgers treated him superbly--giving him a contract equal to what other clubs were paying eighth- and ninth-rounders--he opposed their plans to convert him into a pitcher at single-A Bakersfield. The Dodgers honored his request for a release.

Cleveland signed him six days later and sent him to single-A Kinston (N.C.), but he ended up on the bench. He quit pro baseball and got married last winter. Now he says he can play baseball for the pure enjoyment again.

“People say they just want a chance to play pro ball, but they don’t realize you don’t get a chance,” he said. “If you want to play, you’ve got to go in the first five rounds (of the draft).

“The guy in front of you is hitting a buck-fifty, but they’re going to play him because they’ve got $100,000 invested in him. The only time you get to play is when the brass comes to town--the minor league director, the director of player development. But they don’t know what goes on.”

Deutschman takes pride in the fact that he has helped some players restore their confidence and refocus their futures.

“Most of them are angry when they get here,” Deutschman said. “I think the biggest adjustment is having fun again.”

Of course, Deutschman has dreams and disappointments of his own. He’d like his team to be recognized at home as much as it is in the Midwest. But he fears the Stars--even as the NBC’s fourth-best club--still haven’t shed the hell-raising reputation they have in some circles.

“They think we drink too much beer,” he said. “And we came in fourth in the nation last year. This year, we have the potential to go all the way. I’m getting a lot of calls from scouts and college coaches asking us if we can place their players on our ballclub. But not from San Diego.

“But I could be in a restaurant wearing a (Stars) shirt and hat and someone will come up to me and say, ‘You guys did great.’ They don’t come to the yard, but they pay attention and they know everybody.”

Said Filter: “The real baseball people would get a big kick out of watching us.”

“We want our own ballpark,” Deutschman said. “A place where we could charge our own admission, sell hot dogs, put on a concert, raise some funds.

“It’s only a dream.”